|
Announcing the P.U.-litzer Prizes for
2003
By Norman Solomon
The P.U.-litzer Prizes were established more than a decade ago to give
recognition to the stinkiest media performances of the year. As usual,
I have conferred with Jeff Cohen, founder of the media watch group FAIR,
to sift through the large volume of entries. In view of the many deserving
competitors, we regret that only a few can win a P.U.-litzer.
And now, the twelfth annual P.U.-litzer Prizes, for the foulest media
performances of 2003:
Media Mogul of the Year — Lowry Mays, CEO of Clear Channel
While some broadcasters care about their programming, the CEO of America’s
biggest radio company (with more than 1,200 stations) admits he cares
only about the ads. The Clear Channel boss told Fortune magazine in
March: “If anyone said we were in the radio business, it wouldn’t
be someone from our company. We’re not in the business of providing
news and information. We’re not in the business of providing well-researched
music. We’re simply in the business of selling our customers products.”
Liberating Iraq Prize — Tom Brokaw
Interviewing a military analyst as US jet bombers headed to Baghdad
on the first day of the Iraq war, NBC anchor Brokaw declared: “Admiral
McGinn, one of the things that we don’t want to do is to destroy
the infrastructure of Iraq, because in a few days we’re going to
own that country.”
“The More You Watch, the Less You Know” Prize — Fox
News Channel
According to a University of Maryland study, most Americans who get
their news from commercial TV harbored at least one of three “misperceptions”
about the Iraq war: that weapons of mass destruction had been discovered
in Iraq, that evidence closely linking Iraq to al-Qaida had been found,
or that world opinion approved of the US invasion. Fox News viewers
were the most confused about key facts, with 80 percent embracing at
least one of those misperceptions. The study found a correlation between
being misinformed and being supportive of the war.
“Clear it With the Pentagon” Award — CNN
A month after the invasion of Iraq began, CNN executive Eason Jordan
admitted on his network’s “Reliable Sources” show (April
20) that CNN had allowed US military officials to help screen its on-air
analysts: “I went to the Pentagon myself several times before the
war started and met with important people there and said, for instance
— ‘At CNN, here are the generals we’re thinking of retaining
to advise us on the air and off about the war’ — and we got
a big thumbs-up on all of them. That was important.”
“Conservative Times for the ‘Liberal Media’”
Award — ABC News
Over the years, ABC correspondent John Stossel became known for one-sided,
often-inaccurate reporting on behalf of his pro-corporate, “greed
is good” ideology. He boasted that his on-air job was to “explain
the beauties of the free market,” received lecture fees from corporate
pressure groups, and even spoke on Capitol Hill against consumer-protection
regulation. In May of this year, when Stossel was promoted to co-anchor
of ABC’s “20/20,” a network insider told TV Guide: “These
are conservative times. ...The network wants somebody to match the times.”
“Coddling Donald” Prize — CBS’s Lesley Stahl,
ABC’s Peter Jennings and Others
On the day news broke about Saddam Hussein’s capture, Stahl and
Jennings each interviewed Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. In step
with their mainstream media colleagues, both failed to ask about Rumsfeld’s
cordial 1983 meeting with Hussein in Baghdad on behalf of the Reagan
administration that opened up strong diplomatic and military ties between
the US government and the dictator that lasted through seven years of
his worst brutality.
Military Groupie Prize — Katie Couric of NBC’s “Today”
Show
“Well, Commander Thompson,” said Couric on April 3, in the
midst of the invasion carnage, “thanks for talking with us at this
very early hour out there. And I just want you to know, I think Navy
SEALs rock.”
Noblesse Oblige Occupation Award — Thomas Friedman, New York
Times
In a Nov. 30 piece, Times columnist Friedman gushed that “this
war (in Iraq) is the most important liberal, revolutionary US democracy-building
project since the Marshall Plan.” He lauded the war as “one
of the noblest things this country has ever attempted abroad.”
Friedman did not mention the estimated 112 billion barrels of oil in
Iraq...or the continuous deceptions that led to the “noble”
enterprise.
Norman Solomon is co-author of Target Iraq: What the News Media
Didn’t Tell You.
Israel muzzles Palestinian journalists
By Khalid Amayreh
West Bank, Dec. 21— The international press organization
“Reporters Sans Frontiers” (RSF) recently lambasted Israel
for abusing and harassing Palestinian and foreign journalists covering
the Intifada against Israeli occupation.
The Paris-based group did recognize that Israel generally respected
“the local (Jewish) media freedom of expression”, but criticized
Israel for violating the international covenant on civil and political
rights, including press freedom, especially in the occupied territories.
“Since the start of the Israeli army’s incursions into Palestinian
towns and cities in March 2002, very many journalists have been roughed
up, threatened, arrested, banned from moving around, targeted by gunfire,
wounded or injured, had their press cards withdrawn or been deported,”
it said.
Constant intimidation
Israeli troops have also killed at least 10 journalists since the outbreak
of the Intifada in late August, 2000, including two European journalists
covering Israeli raids into Palestinian population centers.
Aljazeera.net has spoken to dozens of Palestinian and foreign journalists
in the West Bank and Israel.
Virtually all of them agreed that Israeli attacks on press freedom have
assumed unprecedented ferocity, especially in the past three years.
“There is press freedom in Israel as long as you say and write
good things about Sharon, the settlers and the occupation army.
“However, as soon as you start reporting the ugly reality, the
rough treatment begins,” says Nawwaf al-Amer, a Palestinian journalist
from Nablus who was imprisoned and tortured for eight months last year
for “incitement against Israel and the IDF.”
Al-Amer, who spent 25 “nightmarish days” in Israel’s
most notorious top-secret prison, known as Facility no. 1391, said he
lost all feeling in the right side of his head and face as a result
of “sustained abuse and mistreatment.”
“They only told me they wanted to teach me the difference between
journalism and incitement.”
Palestinian spokespersons accuse Israel of deliberately “abusing,
intimidating and eventually killing journalists” in order to prevent
the Palestinian viewpoint from getting through to the international
public opinion.
Pressure tactics
“They use a variety of tactics to effect this goal, including opening
fire on reporters in the field and then claim that they were killed
or injured in ‘crossfire’ or ‘mistaken for terrorists’
or simply ‘operating in a closed military zone,’” says
Yaqub Shahin, a Palestinian Ministry of Information spokesman.
Shahin produced a prepared list of the names of 10 Palestinian and foreign
reporters, cameramen and photojournalists killed by the Israeli army
in the period between Oct. 19, 2000 and May 2, 2003.
He charged that the killings were carried out “knowingly and deliberately
and without any rational justification.”
“When it comes to journalists, I assure you that Israeli soldiers
are more than trigger-happy. They shoot first and then ask questions.”
In several recorded cases, Israeli soldiers took aim at photographers
and cameramen following a mishap or an incident, or after sustaining
casualties.
For instance, on July 11, 2002, an Israeli armored personnel carrier
(APC) operating in the northern West Bank of Jenin drove into an electricity
pole, knocking it down and subsequently causing the live wires to land
atop the military vehicle.
In response to the self-incurred blunder, soldiers in accompanying tanks
fired high-velocity bullets at Palestinian photographer Imad Abu Zahra
for taking a snapshot of the embarrassing incident.
Silenced voices
The large caliber bullets opened a grapefruit-size wound in his right
thigh, ravaging more than eight centimeters of his femoral artery.
Abu Zahra, prevented by the Israeli troops from reaching the hospital,
later died.
Likewise, an Israeli soldier mounting another APC shot and killed Italian
photojournalist Raffaele Cireillo on March 13, 2002, as the Corriere
della Sera photographer was taking snap shots of Israeli tanks rumbling
into Ram Allah.
On May 2, 2003, British film producer James Miller was killed in Gaza
by Israeli soldiers while preparing a documentary film on the effect
of Israeli violence on Palestinian children.
Seeking to win the “PR war,” Israel sought from the very inception
of the Intifada to “silence Palestinian voices” by “whatever
means necessary.”
Indeed, at the beginning of the uprising, Israeli F-16 fighter jets
bombed and destroyed the Voice of Palestine (VOP) Radio in Ram Allah,
knocking it off the air.
Israeli officials then defended the bombing, claiming the station was
indulging “in incitement and propaganda.”
Soon afterwards, the Israeli army began targeting some privately owned
FM radio stations, which began to function as substitutes for the VOP,
vandalizing a number of these outlets, such as Radio Amwaj in Ram Allah.
When the Israeli army re-occupied all population centers previously
run by the PA in 2002, troops acting under the pretext of fighting human
bombings, vandalized and ransacked several press offices, studios and
presses.
In addition, many Palestinian journalists were arrested, and some of
them are still in jail.
Incarcerations
In most cases, the detainees were kept in “administrative detention”
for a minimum of six months, indefinitely renewable, without even knowing
why they were being detained.
“I really don’t know why I was imprisoned for six months.
They didn’t talk to me at all,” says Hussam Abu Allan, an
AFP photographer from Hebron who spent six months in the notorious desert
detention camp “Kitziot” near the Egyptian borders.
A similar testimony was given by Nizar Ramadan, a Hebron-based journalist
who was jailed for 15 months for “incitement and giving a subversive
lecture at Hebron University.”
Palestinian journalists are normally denied Israeli press cards from
the Government Press Office (GPO) in West Jerusalem.
Not being able to obtain the card means not only the inability to enter
Israel proper, but East Jerusalem as well. It also prevents journalists
from passing through the ubiquitous Israeli army roadblocks throughout
the West Bank.
More recently, the GPO adopted a harsher procedure in granting press
cards to all non-Israeli journalists.
According to the new procedure, a foreign journalist must obtain security
clearance from the Shin Beth, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency.
Selection criteria
Israeli officials are tight-lipped on what criteria the Shin Beth is
adopting in granting or denying applicants the GPO press card.
However, most Palestinian and foreign journalists have interpreted the
stringent measure as an intimidation tactic aimed at bullying them to
report pro-Israeli news and views.
When asked to respond to Palestinian journalists’ grievances about
Israeli mistreatment, Israeli officials were less than charitable.
“We are under no obligation to help Palestinian journalists enter
Israel. We don’t differentiate between ordinary Palestinians and
Palestinians who claim to be journalists,” said Daniel Seaman,
GPO Director.
After Aljazeera.net reminded Seaman that Israel was the de facto ruling
power in the West Bank, Seaman said, “The Israeli army is only
conducting security operations there.”
When further pressed to explain why the Israeli army is harassing Palestinian
journalists and preventing them from freely traveling within the West
Bank, Seaman said, “Israel is under no obligation to help those
who undermine her image.”
Source: Aljazeera
|
